Home Birth Midwives in South Carolina 20 verified listings, Costs, Licensing, and Insurance

South Carolina licenses Licensed Midwives through the South Carolina Department of Public Health under Regulation 61-24. DHEC ran the program until the agency split in 2024; DPH now handles midwife licensing, and the old scdhec.gov site is gone. LMs are direct-entry midwives, most holding the NARM CPM credential, which state licensure builds on. South Carolina CNMs are licensed by the South Carolina Board of Nursing as advanced practice registered nurses with prescriptive authority.

Verify any midwife's LM license with the Department of Public Health at dph.sc.gov. Confirm the license is active, in good standing, and free of disciplinary actions.

Regulation 61-24 is stricter than most state midwifery rules. Read it that way before assuming anything about what your midwife can do. It sets risk-screening criteria and lists maternal and neonatal conditions that require physician referral. It requires a signed informed consent form kept in her permanent records, plus a written strategy for backup medical care and transportation planned before your due date and coordinated with the backup providers. ^[3]

On medications, South Carolina goes the other way from most states. Regulation 61-24 says drugs shall be administered only after consultation with and prescription by a physician, and then names only three exceptions: control of postpartum hemorrhage, newborn eye prophylaxis, and RhoGam. ^[3] Intramuscular Pitocin for postpartum hemorrhage is named as an emergency measure the midwife must be trained to carry out. ^[3] There is no rule listing oxygen, IV supplies, or neonatal resuscitation equipment as required gear, so do not assume your midwife carries any of it. Ask her what is in her bag and see it.

South Carolina midwife packages typically run $3,500 to $6,500.

Charleston metro: $4,500 to $6,500. Largest home birth market in the state, several established practices, fastest-growing region.

Greenville and the Upstate (Greenville, Spartanburg, Anderson): $4,000 to $6,000. Stable mid-sized supply, active community.

Columbia metro: $4,000 to $5,500. Capital region, university town with stable supply.

Beaufort and the Lowcountry (Beaufort, Bluffton, Hilton Head): $4,500 to $6,500. Active community, often shared with Savannah Georgia practitioners.

Rural South Carolina: $3,500 to $5,000. Midwife scarcity is the binding variable; some families work with practitioners who travel from larger metros.

Labs, ultrasounds, and birth supplies are typically billed separately, adding $200 to $500.

South Carolina is one of the few Southern states with a documented Medicaid billing pathway for home birth. Healthy Connections covers CNM services as a federal mandatory benefit, and SCDHHS enrolls Licensed Midwives as providers: LM claims carry an SB modifier, a home delivery supply code exists, and every billing LM must have a Medicaid-enrolled physician credentialed in obstetrics providing documented back-up. That back-up requirement is the practical constraint. Midwives without an arrangement on file cannot bill, which is why many South Carolina home birth practices still operate as private-pay.

If you have Healthy Connections, ask any midwife you interview three questions: are you enrolled with South Carolina Medicaid, who is your back-up physician, and have you billed my plan for home birth recently? Then confirm the answers with your plan before committing. For full details, see our South Carolina Medicaid home birth guide.

For commercial insurance, most South Carolina home birth midwives are out of network. Standard process: pay the midwife, get a superbill at birth, submit for reimbursement. What comes back depends entirely on your plan's out-of-network maternity terms, so ask your insurer for those terms in writing before you count on any of it. See our OON reimbursement guide.

South Carolina's hospital names and delivery sites have moved a lot in the last two years. Novant Health bought three Tenet hospitals in February 2024, HCA rebranded its Lowcountry sites in October 2025, and two labor and delivery units have relocated. Confirm the current destination with your midwife rather than trusting an older list.

Charleston metro: deepest market in South Carolina. MUSC Health is the regional academic referral center; deliveries happen at the Pearl Tourville Women's Pavilion inside MUSC Shawn Jenkins Children's Hospital, which has 17 labor and delivery rooms and the only Level IV NICU in the state. Novant Health East Cooper Medical Center in Mount Pleasant delivers with a Level II special care nursery. Roper St. Francis has two delivery hospitals, Bon Secours St. Francis Hospital in West Ashley and Roper St. Francis Berkeley Hospital in Summerville, together handling close to 3,000 births a year. One correction worth noting: Trident Medical Center, now HCA Healthcare Trident Hospital, no longer delivers. HCA's Lowcountry deliveries run through HCA Healthcare Summerville Hospital, formerly Summerville Medical Center, which has a Level III NICU. Plan to start your search by week 8 to 10.

Greenville and the Upstate: Prisma Health Greenville Memorial Hospital, whose Birthplace unit handles roughly 6,000 births a year, backed by the Level III NICU at Prisma Health Children's Hospital Upstate. In the Bon Secours system, maternity is at St. Francis Eastside with a Level II neonatal care unit. St. Francis Downtown does not deliver.

Columbia: Prisma Health Richland Hospital, with a Level III NICU at Prisma Health Children's Hospital Midlands, and Lexington Medical Center in West Columbia, which delivers over 4,000 babies a year with a Level II nursery. Note the Lexington network rebranded to Lexington Health in August 2025 and moved from lexmed.com to lexhealth.com, though the hospital's own name is unchanged.

Beaufort and the Lowcountry: Beaufort Memorial Collins Birthing Center, with nine labor and delivery suites and a Level II nursery. Novant Health Hilton Head Medical Center stopped delivering on July 17, 2026; Bluffton and Hilton Head deliveries now go to Novant Health Coastal Carolina Medical Center in Hardeeville, which has a Level II special care nursery with 24-hour OB-GYN and anesthesia coverage. ^[4] Hilton Head's emergency department kept its obstetric emergency capability, and the prenatal clinics stayed open. A planned Novant Health Bluffton Medical Center is slated to include six labor and delivery rooms, so this may change again.

Rural South Carolina: distances to a hospital with full obstetric services may exceed 30 to 45 minutes. Drive your route once before your due date.

Reconsider any South Carolina midwife who cannot produce a current DPH LM license (or Board of Nursing CNM license), cannot tell you her transfer rate, claims she has never needed to transfer without explanation, doesn't perform a clinical health history before accepting you, or is vague about emergency protocols.

Ask before hiring: How many births have you attended total, and how many in the last 12 months? What is your transfer rate for first-time mothers (honest numbers run 22 to 45 percent per documented research)? What emergency medications do you carry, and when did you last use each? Walk me through your postpartum hemorrhage protocol. Which hospital do you use for transfers, and have you transferred a client there in the last 12 months? Can I speak with three recent clients?

Call the references.

South Carolina has a strong home birth landscape with deep communities in Charleston, the Upstate, Columbia, and the Lowcountry. The constraint outside metro areas is supply.

Start your search by week 8 to 10 in Charleston, Greenville, and Columbia. Treat 10 weeks as a deadline elsewhere. Verify any midwife at dph.sc.gov; the old scdhec.gov address no longer resolves.

Use the matching form below: tell us your due date, ZIP code, insurance type, and birth history.